Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1887-10-12


we thought work might begin again.
Anyway, we'd have our meat for the
rest of the winter.
Well, it's no use to go over that II
wasn't pleasure trip. We weren't
out for the fun of killing. We camped
out at night, and rode and shot and
dressed game by day, and did not starve
nor quite freeze TO death; and we got
back again on to the plains along in
December.
/ wanted to push through and gel
home. but the horses were played out
and all the next day, after we struck
the level, we just crawled along. We
had not heard word since we started,
and was pretty anxious-Molly was
not well when left her; but there was
no choice about it. l had to go; the
women were with her, and there was
a doctor in the town, and Clayton had
a good horse, and we had to do about
that as we had done about every thing
else-take our chances.
1 shan't forget that day. Along in
the middle of the morning a norther
began to blow. 1t did not snow, al
though the sky thickened up with
gray, woolly-looking clouds, low down
and threatening. You never felt a
northern A wind that goes through
your bones, that clutches your heart
and stops your brain, that breaks you
up, body and soul. You don't know
any thing about cold till you've felt
one. II there is such a thing as q
frozen hell, that's where these winds
come from. 1t isn't pure cold; it's
ghost cold, and all the Internal regions
let loose, yelling and laundering up in
the awful emptiness over your head
and round you.
Love the prairiesp Well, you can
love them good deal better on paper
than anywhere else. But there's an
awful fascination about them, some
how. It's like the sea. A man that's
got his living on them for ten years is
fit for nothing else in Gods world. He
can't get away. He's spoiled for every
thing else under Heaven. He's got to
have the sky and chance to breathe.
It's about all there is to get, better
than he can have anywhere else; but
it's sure fact that so much he's got to
have whatever else gets left It's like
a poem, may be--'I amt much on
rhyme" myself-driving across them in
warm weather; horses fresh and well
fed, with big tent and spring cots
for camping and supply wagon
with every thing you can think OF
but ice, and may be that; all the
world a-ripple with summer green; the
south wind surging like warm ocean,
and the sky blue and soft and arching
away up to the great White Throne.
That's one thing. To go trailing along,
horses dead beat and half starved, pull
ing big wagon through sloughs up to
the axles or over frozen ruts that wiring
every bolt in the concern and every
bone in your body; with mile after
mile of dead grass stretching out to
the edge of the world; with buzzards
swinging up out of nowhere, more like
something internal than any decent
live thing; with coyotes yolping and
crying all night-that's another thing,
and the kind that doesn't get talked
about much. Perhaps you remember
that item in last winters newspapers,
half-dozen lines or so-two families
frozen in Texas norther, horses, dogs,
and all just as they stood.
That night we went into camp ten
miles from home. There was ravine
and plenty of brush, and the horses
were ready to drop in their tracks, and
that last ten miles was one of the things
that couldn't be done. So we got oul
fires made and our horses fed and
sheltered as well as we could, and put
some heart into ourselves with buffalo
steak and hot coffee; and the rest Of
them packed themselves into the
wagon. Some one had to stand guard
and keep the fires going, and / tool
the contract.
1t wasn't dark night. There was {
goodish bit of moon behind tn,
clouds, and it made gray kind o.
light over every thing We were a
the bottom of a dry canyon that raj
east and west, and the wind did no
reach us. 1t screeched and screamed
over our heads, and through it al
there was kind of moaning roar, az
if we were at the bottom of a tide al
deep as the stars are high. got t.
thinking about old times away back, o
one Sunday night just before we were
married. i had gone East little soone
than we expected and mad to wait fo
her things to be finished. We went tt
church that night. A keen, crisp, still
night it was, when the sleigh-runner
squeaked on the snow and the moon
light traced the shadows of the elms OIL
the white ground as if they had beer
put in in black drawing. The churcl
was warm and bright and they hadn'
taken down the Christmas greens yet, S,
the air was full of the smell ofthem--tha
spicy, haunting smell, that seems as
it came somehow from world befor
this. 1t was years since | had smelle,
it, and l sat and listened to the musi
and looked at the people, with theil
comfortable clothing and faces tina
were cheerful, not worn and wrinklet
with care and weather. Molly was al
awfully pretty girl in those days; al
pink and white like an apple blossom
somehow And fighting to keep awak
out there in the heart of a, Kansas prairi
got to thinking about her as she wa
then and how she had changed. ski
the color of tanned leather now, ant
that wild, hungry look in her blue eye
as if they were always staring into tn
dark for something that frightene,
her. And both her children dead, an,
not even spray of the pine she love,
| so, nor breath of music; nothing bu
a dirt floor and log walls that did al
that was expected of them if they KEEP
the weather out
Somebody hailed over the top of tn